WSDOT: on time and under budget

For those of you righties who insist that WSDOT projects are always late and over budget, I just thought I’d post the above chart from page four of WSDOT’s quarterly performance report, the Gray Notebook. (Don’t complain to me that it’s too small to read… go download the original for yourself.)

The chart shows the 12 projects that have been completed thus far from those in the package financed by the 2003 nickel gas tax increase. Eight projects were completed early, and only one late, while six of the projects came in under budget, and only one over.

I apologize in advance for any cognitive dissonance I might cause by inserting actual facts into the public debate.

UPDATE: I guess I should have mentioned the obvious typo in the chart above… the figures are of course in thousands, not millions as stated. Silly me… I hadn’t imagined that folk would try to use a little typo to drive the debate off topic.

And for those of you who insist that we can’t trust any of the audit numbers coming out of WSDOT, well here’s a little more cognitive dissonance to stick in your craw… a list of the performance audits conducted since 1991:

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Actually, you didn’t need to apologize at all Goldy :) The numbers in this Gray Notebook are obviously in error. I looked at Page 4 of the Gray Notebook, and the dollar figures they give can’t possibly be accurate.

The top of the money column says: “On Budget (Dollars in Millions)”, and the next line has two columns” “Planned” and “Actual”.

In any event, the twelve projects total $40,078 MILLION Planned and $39,560 MILLION Actual. A thousand MILLION is a BILLION. So we are talking about 12 projects that totaled approximately FORTY BILLION DOLLARS?

Did it really cost $8,369 MILLION — which is just under $8.4 BILLION — to build “I-90, Ryegrass Summit to Vantage – Truck Climbing Lanes”? More than twice the cost of a gold-plated tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct?

Look at the numbers yourself, Goldy. You will have to agree that the Department of Transportation figures are off by several orders of magnitude.

What? Mostly on-time, almost all at or below cost projects from the evil WSDoT????

How can this be true in such a mismanaged state (oops. . . I guess I mean one of the best managed states.

Maybe it is because we have such an enormous tax burden (oops. . . I guess we really have about the median tax burden of all states).

How can it be when everybody everywhere recognizes WSDoT as a complete joke of a state agency that causes bridges fall down or sink. (oops. . . I guess there is some national recognition of WSDoT’s efforts).

Yeah, several orders of magnitude. Three, to be exact. Checking project costs from previous gray books, it’s pretty easy to see that the numbers they list are actually in thousands, not millions. So they have mislabeled the table.

You’re missing the point. WSDOT can do small projects as your data clearly shows. But to extrapolate that to huge multi billion dollar projects is a stretch.

But the biggest problem is transportation policy. We don’t GAF how efficient they are at building carpool lanes. We don’t want carpool lanes that sit empty. We want the problem fixed and that means pouring miles and miles and miles of concrete for general use so we can get where we’re going in our big SUVs.

I know WSDOT isn’t involved in boondoggles like monorail and Sound Transit, but we’re SAFT of seeing our money go down those kinds of ratholes that don’t do anything to fix the problem.

So the problem isn’t “doing things right”… it’s “doing the right things”. And that’s what we want.

You’re wasting your time. The wingnuts don’t care about facts. They just want to scuttle all government-funded projects for anything and anybody except THEM.

Whatever any government agency does, they will pick it to death. It’s not perfect, so it shouldn’t exist. They will pull shit out of the air and keep repeating it as if it were fact, and sooner or later — to them at least — it does become fact, just like ads on TV get into your head if you’re too dumb to use your mute button.

Same old shit, every day. But I’ll tell you this: We’re going to fix our transportation problems — if not sooner, then later. It will cost more later, of course, and all the wingnuts will have to pay more. Funny how that works. But work it will.

Richard@1&2– I immediately caught the same major error you did before I saw your comments. Great minds think alike. Great minds look for accuracy in data. Great minds still question where these numbers actually came from. 1) Who developed the “Timetable” dates? Were they reasonable? 2) How many of these projects were done be WSDOT vs. Outside contractors? 3) Within scope…was that original scope…or reflect change orders?? 4) Ahhhhhh…Planned Budget? Who developed this original Budget? Does it have any bearing on a cost effective use of tax dollars? How does it compare with “Cost per Mile” with other states? 5) Actual—-DOES THIS INCLUDE ONLY DIRECT PROJECT COSTS?? DOES IT INCLUDE ALL PLANNING AND OVERHEAD COSTS?? 6) Who developed these numbers? What was the scope and depth of the AUDIT of these Gray Book numbers????

Just a few questions off the top of my head. JLARC numbers have proved to be very politically correct in the past. Are these? What about all the staff time & outside costs spent on projects that have yet to go anywhere…or never made the list?? Goldy, I do appreciate your apology…it’s hard to be humble!!!

The Republifarts will just say the facts are wrong. For them there is no debate. They are right and you are wrong no matter what. You really should consider banning some of the rightist commenters— starting with Mr Cynical and Mark the REdneck. We cannot discuss ANYTHING through the din created by these Republifart attack poodles.

To put this in perspective: Would you allow 9th graders to continually disrupt school board meetings with their antics. I think not.

These numbers are meaningless. I guess they want a pat on the back for installing a signal light in under 2 years. The projects that we complain about are the ones that aren’t finished yet, the late ones. Show us a chart with the progress of those projects that are not yet complete or not even started yet. Or maybe one of those projects promised to win a vote from a particular legislator with no actual intent to follow through.

The tables on pp 13 and 14 of the complete version of the GRAYBOOK give a better picture of the dollar situation on transportation projects and are clearly marked in the thousands, not millions. So, how about we use those figures as the benchmark of our public discussion, rather than the one mistakenly labeled in the millions? Is that OK, or do we allow this thing to devolve into a rightie hoot at a minor labeling error?

I notice that the table is entitled “Recap of Twelve Nickel Projects Completed as of March 31, 2005.” One would expect the title to be “Recap of THE Twelve Nickel Projects Completed as of March 31, 2005,” if the figures were meant to show what you are trying to say. This table simply shows that twelve projects were completed on time, out of an unknown number of projects total.

Give it up, Mark. There’s no market for your bullshit on HorsesAss today. We have layers upon layers of audits and accountability. We have transparency. We have miles of concrete being poured (have you actually DRIVEN anywhere recently?). Goldy just laid “on-time, on-budget” evidence in front of you. What we don’t have is empty HOV lanes. What we do have is a surfeit of winger bullshit.

Cynical, since JLARC (i.e., the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee) consists of Republicans and Democrats from the House and Senate, this either proves (a) there’s a vast bipartisan conspiracy to deceive the citizenry or (b) you’re a fucking idiot.

Don’t wet your pants on “budget”. Its just a forecast, up front. Exceeding or going under budget doesn’t tell you much, except perhaps that the budgeting process was flawed. I guess I’d of course argue exceeding budget all the time suggests lying to the “approvers” in order to get a project approved, but again, budget is only the up front guess.

WSDOT notes that original budget is continually revised. So taken to the extreme, all projects should be perfectly on budget (given ability to keep revising).

I still don’t see any independent audit of efficacy/efficiency of the money that WSDOT spends. Give me the page number that says something like “the national avg for poured concrete is $XX and WSDOT did this project for .9XX or 1.1XX, etc. Not there, so I’m not sure what good this gov’t report is…

Michael, it’s too bad you don’t put 1/100th as much energy into looking up actual facts as you invest in dreaming up talking points. Why don’t you try something truly novel (for you), i.e., actually FINDING OUT how many nickel projects there are by actually READING the fucking report? Please take a deep breath, then report back to us when you have a clue WTF you’re talking about.

Some guy on the net tried to propagate a meme about “cheap labor conservatives” because that in essence is what they are. They can’t stand to see anyone other than themselves (especially if they tend to vote democrat) making a tolerable living.

The name of the meme needs to be changed: “Walmart Wage Wingers” or “Coolie Labor Conservatives”.

In ages past they would bring cheap labor from China here to build railroads and whatnot. Now they send the work there. Got to love these wingers.

a) a report they put out on a dozen cherry picked projects proves nothing. Give me the all up view b) I was tossing you a bone; Ok, give me the original budgets (time and $$) and then give me actual results. That likely shows they come way over, at the end of the day. But the bone to toss (i thought about this after reading the prior quarter report on how they beat “estimator’s estimate”) is that the budget is whatever they say it is, so what is more important, % variance from budget, or absolute efficacy? I think the latter. Certainly is where i work. c) I still haven’t see in thsi report or elsewhere anything resembling proof. But we are in the realm of business and finance, and lefties and their gov’t worker cousins aren’t known for their grasp of market economics, finance, accounting, etc.

It is like playing limbo, the WSDOT set the completion high enough that even they could walk under it. Hey, I have an idea, lets let the 4th grade students this year assign and grade their own work! Then at the end of the year we will let the students give their own report card grades! When the parents complain we can show that all class work was turned in on time and graded! We will even have the report card to prove it! Hell we dont need teachers to audit a childs education, the children can do it themselves! I wonder if Home Depot, Walmart or Lowes used the same figures on the new buildings they have put in?

I agree with Chuck, Righton, and Mr. Cyn — WSDOT can’t possibly do its work on time and budget on the east side of the Cascades, so no transportation money should be spent over there. Of course, over here on the wet side, we see that estimating cost and time for big projects is an imperfect thing, so we’ll go ahead and get our roads built. But on the east side, citizens are better informed, so they won’t want to have any state or federal money spent on their roads. Or their schools for that matter. Or irrigation projects. That would just serve the wet side right.

It’s to see DOT being on time and under budget on some projects. My question is “What changed between these projects and previous failures?”. I’m assuming the better performance is not based upon “we included a bigger fudge factor”. If so, then I’d say apply that process to the bigger projects, assuming the process will scale. Then we’ll get a better feeling for whether DOT can handle a really large scale project like AWV or 520.

I’d like to see data from some larger projects, like the I-405 improvements. Most of the completed projects are in Eastern Washington and don’t have some of the closure constraints that the more travelled roads, i.e. I-405, I-5, 520, have.

But, considering this is the first biennium of significant construction activity of the nickel package, I’d expect only those projects that were smaller, and completed on-time or early to be done.

SR 9, 268th Street Intersection “The current construction estimate of $3.1 million is $1.8 million higher than the budgeted amount of $1.3 million.”

This project alone wipes out the amount the 12 completed projects were under budget.

“U.S. 395, North Spokane Corridor” “Assuming the currently identified high-risk items become actual costs, the project estimate for the Nickel funding could increase by as much as $32 million at completion in 2011 over the $189 million allocated.”

This project could possibly cost more in overruns than all the projects completed to date.

“These changes taken together will result in the need to shift $2.5 million from the 07-09 biennium and $3.3 million from the 05-07 biennium, resulting in $5.8 million being added to the 03-05 biennium. The total cost of the three projects is $63.3 million and remains unchanged.”

I get concerned when money is shifted around, but the cost won’t go up. That raises a red flag, probably why this project is on the watch list.

Hey guys… come on… I posted a link… so download the fucking Gray Notebook and READ IT FOR YOUR YOURSELF, before whining about what is or is not in it!

Yes, there is a typo in the table I posted, but I posted that one because it was a relatively simple summary that proved the point that yes… at least some projects are delivered on time and on budget, but mostly, because the large tables won’t fit in the column space allowed on HA. Again… read it for yourself.

As to accountability, just to throw a little more cognitive dissonance at you, I’ve updated a post to include a list of the peformance audits conducted since 1991.

I didn’t bring up that one because there was no need to… I posted a link to the Graybook so you could all look at if for yourselves, and the claim I was addressing was the oft stated assertion that WSDOT never brings projects in on time or on budget… and as you can see, they often bring projects in ahead of time and/or under budget.

See… I’m not a pathological liar or a blind ideologue who always has to speak in extremes… so I didn’t need to defend some extremist vision that WSDOT is always perfect. Of course they’re not… of course some projects run late and have cost overruns. But if you look through the documentation and the various audits, you’ll find that in recent years WSDOT has done a pretty damn good job delivering projects in scope, on time and on budget.

The reason the arrow doesn’t show is that the interpreter is processing it as HTML (check the note beginning with “line breaks…” under the comment space.

The reason people will vote for I-912 doesn’t have anything to do with completion rates or project efficiency, it’s just that we want the WSDOT to live within their (our) means. No more taxes. We also think that the “getting people out of their cars” mentality is wrong. We want WSDOT to concentrate on building roads for the commuters and not social engineer us into buses or light rail or carpools.

ConservativeFirst@37— You have adeptly identified the biggest problem with getting a clear evaluation of Government Capital Projects….that is, the shell game. It is played by revising budgets, revising time-lines and decisions made on how to capitalize staff costs and allocate overhead to specific projects. Have you ever heard or read a clear, concise summary of what WSDOT overhead actually is and how these dollars are charged to specific projects? Have you ever seen a clear summary that shows all budget and time-line revisions since a project was originally approved? Accountability is a huge problem. The onus is on the Government Entity and Legislators to provide independently verified, clear & concise documentation. When Government Entities go out of their way to only highlight successes…..that is disingenuous and leads to a lack of trust when someone digs out a failure. I believe taxpayers are better off with the WSDOT and Legislators getting an ongoing grilling about SCOPE OF WORK, COSTS and TIMELINES. Frankly, I set the bar that they should meet or beat expectations. And WSDOT should openly, honestly and publicly discuss the failures. That ain’t happening. Look at the $60 million Hood Canal Graving Yard boondoggle. Trust me…if Jim Buck hadn’t raised such a stink, this would have been buried or chalked up to “Bad Luck” just like every other of their many failures. It is predictable that LEFTIST PINHEADS who scream for accountability at the Federal Level immediately become defensive when their pet projects and their ilk are questioned. That’s why LEFTIST PINHEADS are becoming more and more IRRELEVANT. windie– I was willing to openly change my name to Mr. Irrelevant when Judge Bridges ruled. What will you change your name to when I-912 overwhelmingly passes? No sense of humor windie??? LEFTIST PINHEADS lack the ability to laugh at themselves. They are actually serious about the bullshit they spew!!!

”But we are in the realm of business and finance, and lefties and their gov’t worker cousins aren’t known for their grasp of market economics, finance, accounting, etc.”

Ahhhh. . . righton, that may have been true 50 years ago. I noticed that these days the Republicans (or Righties) forget to generate revenue, but still rack up debt like the second coming of Christ is just around the corner.

It would appear that the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility—when they need to spend money, they raise the revenue first.

Roger Rabbit @17— You point out that JLARC consists of both Democrats & Republicans (controlled by Democrats however). When did I ever say that some of the Republican Legislators weren’t lazy and stupid too??? It’s not a vast conspiracy….far from it. People run for office and get elected with good intentions. Then the Bureaucrats get ahold of them and put them into a “spin cycle” for a few months and they come out confused, stupid and sell out to the Bureaucrats. BOTH PARTIES!! How many of our Legistlators have the expertise to question Government Road Capital Projects???? How about close to ZERO!!!! Perhaps if we ALL got together (LEFTIST PINHEADS and those of us who are always RIGHT) and ALL starting grilling these Bureaucrats, we might get somewhere. Bureaucrats thrive and pray on gutless, stupid Legislators. These Legislators have huge egoes which don’t allow them to come clean and say they don’t know what the fuck they are doing. BOTH PARTIES!!! They love being “in charge”. In reality, it’s the unprofessional, unaccountable Bureaucrats who are in charge. Don’t kid yourselves. The way out of this BULLSHIT is to stop the flow of tax dollars and demand a house-cleaning….then move forward.

being pro I912 because you’re assigning motivations to the WSDOT seems like a risky proposition to me, but maybe you know something I don’t. I just hope that you’re not getting fed that idea by demagogues…

lessee, what’ll I call myself if I-912 passes? Probably “Windie” still… Unlike you, I”m not making grandiose claims about whether it’ll pass or not. I’m saying it shouldn’t pass. If people are easily led sheep, or suicidal “Shoot myself in the foot” types, its sad, and it hurts all of us, but its hardly a personal failure on my part.

I’ll tell ya what tho’, just for you, if it passes, I’ll change my name to “Pity for rightwing masochists” for a week or 2… Will that help?

PS Damn, cynical, I really got under your skin, didn’t I? Does it hurt that much being called as the useless, thinskinned, negative troll you are? I’ve noticed some of the righties telling you to shut up too, lately… Thats gotta hurt.

windie–@51– You are under my skin?? It hurts ME what YOU say?? Yeah, right dude. Let the unaccountable Bureaucrats lead you around by the nose. Obviously you are quite fragile…afraid to rattle the status quo. LOSER!!

“The reason people will vote for I-912 doesn’t have anything to do with completion rates or project efficiency, it’s just that we want the WSDOT to live within their (our) means. No more taxes.”

Ummmm. . . perhaps you are too young to remember that the WSDOT lost a huge chunck of funding in 1999 when the car tab tax was eliminated. Since then, WSDOT has been living well below its means. The Transportation Package restores much of the lost revenue.

Perhaps you also do not understand that the gas tax is an excise tax, meaning that it is a fixed amount per gallon, rather than being tied to the price of gas (i.e. a sales tax). This means that the tax must be increased periodically to offset inflation.

“We also think that the “getting people out of their cars” mentality is wrong. We want WSDOT to concentrate on building roads for the commuters and not social engineer us into buses or light rail or carpools.”

You fucking idiot! If you knew anything at all about the Transportation Package, you would know that:

1. The projects are highway improvements, with highway safety being the primary criterion for prioritizing projects.

2. The money does not go to light rail or sound transit.

Dig-out that talk radio lodged up your ass and learn some actual facts about the the tax revenue and what it is used for.

I Kinda wanna spare the others a flamewar, but just really quick, the ‘ol’ Republican Switcheroo’ won’t work here. We’ve all seen that. Can you people possibly avoid projecting your own flaws on other people for even 5 seconds?

To the “content” of your post, well, damn. “Unnacountable”? What’re you smoking anywyas? READ GOLDY’S POST. It lists internal accountability numbers AND external audits… How much accountability do you want?

I just read the Gray Notebook. I can now see how the WSDOT is doing things that bring up red flags. Page 13 and 14 show a whole lot of adjustments up and down in budgets. Shifting funds from one time in the budget to another budget. All of these show budget changes that were re-approved after the actual costs went up again. So for the most part they went over budget and went back for approval. Since they received approval they are now under budget. One example is the SR539, Ten mile road to SR546. Right of way estimate in Feb. 2005 is 17.5 million. Budget was for 5.2 million. This is on page 12. They propose a shift of funds. Than to finish they need approval for additional funding. This beyond what was estimated and budgeted. I guess this is why people a questioning the WSDOT. When the budget can be constantly changed to make it look like it’s in budget.

in other words, they’ll never ever be convinced. No amount of evidence will make these people see the truth, they just don’t care. All they want is their manufactured outrage, their easy party-loyalty, and their unquestioning obedience to the Great Gurus at KVI.

Windie; thanks, but environmental permitting reports don’t help, and i’m looking for the guts of one of the reports to read. I skimmed the 80 odd page gray book and really didn’t see in depth analysis of current spending. i’m assuming their weeding and striping work (regular maintenance) is roughly ok, but the big stuff eludes me

We had to rein in spending with car tabs, we’ll do it again on gas tax.

We’re asking for a different priority on projects – and use the current tax structure. This shouldn’t be so hard to understand. No HOV lanes, etc. If I run out of money before the end of the month, I put off buying my new Mercedes until next month.

James S.— Precisely the “shell game” that entrenched Bureaucrats engage in. If they were upfront and completely open about failures like the Hood Canal Bridge $60 million boondoggle, people would have more confidence. However, when they “investigate” and no one is fired….taxpayer confidence quickly erodes. Bureaucrats have created an US vs. Taxpayers environment BY THEIR ACTIONS. That is unacceptable to me. These Bureaucrats who are so entrenched and arrogant must be eliminated and replaced with fresh blood with the understanding that NOTHING will be hidden or glossed over. It is not the taxpayers job to try and reform ehtrenched Bureaucrats who have lost our confidence. Taxpayers demand bang for the buck and clear accountability and an open, honest government that is clearly upfront about failures. Set the bar high!!

No spin, he and Goldy provided a list of audits. I know that you have a strong aversion to reading, righton, but if you want copies of the audits they are all, by law, publically available. Contact the Audit Office:

From the link you posted, for the only thing i care about (waste)…note the “no independent audit for 10 years”…!!!

“Construction Contract Management and Contracts: Compliance and performance review audits on 5 to 6 major construction projects–excludes PE & ROW; audit covers all activities from bid opening of contracts through final inspection and closure of projects.

This area has not had an independent review by IA in the last 10 years; special focus on documentation procedures, pay estimates, material testing, change orders, force account calculations and payments.”

You want businesses to move here (or stay here)? You need highways and mass transit and infrastructure in general.

You’ll recall that Boeing left Seattle shortly after I-695 and the various monorail recalls. Could There Be A Connection??? :-) Could WA’s schizophrenic attitude towards improving its infrastructure be driving businesses away, and making the state less attractive to businesses that want to move here?

The Republicans who want everything for free in this state are anti-business. Plain as day. They seem to want to regulate economic development in WA by underfunding needed infrastructure. And if that’s their plan, they could at least be up front about it rather than sneaking around and pretending to be populists calling for accountability.

ok I read that page… you realize that that page was written for the 2002-2003 year, and is a PLAN for what they’re going to audit? They were planning 2,500 hours in that year for auditing that part, probably BECAUSE it hadn’t been audited in 10 years.

“We had to rein in spending with car tabs, we’ll do it again on gas tax.”

Why? We have a pretty reasonable state tax burden. There was no reason to gut transportation funding in 1999. If you want highways (as you claim you do above), then you have to pay taxes to get those highways.

If you think about it, defunding major infrastructure projects has the inevitable outcome of more mass transit types of projects. If your infrastructure is overloaded with no possibilities of expanding, then mass transportation is the alternative.

“We’re asking for a different priority on projects – and use the current tax structure. This shouldn’t be so hard to understand. No HOV lanes, etc. If I run out of money before the end of the month, I put off buying my new Mercedes until next month.”

You logic is bankrupt. If you cannot expand infrastructure, the logical alternative is to provide incentive to get people off the road. That is the outcome of trying to do things on the cheap. Of course, ultimately, defunding the transportation infrastructure will put us in the proud situation of being the Bangladesh of America.

Oh. . . and if you need a new car but you don’t have the money, perhaps taking the bus or carpooling is your best alternative.

BTW: much of the gas tax increase is for safety improvements, so I912 is something akin to a “don’t make our highways safer” initiative.

Clueless@70– Yes I did vote for Brian Sonntag…and I will likely do so again. What you need to get a “clue” about is the scope and depth of Audits by the State Auditor. Much of it is basic compliance and making sure numbers are in the right box. THEY DO NOT NECESSARILY GIVE YOU COMFORT THAT DOLLARS ARE SPENT WISELY OR EFFECTIVELY! I don’t believe for a moment that Brian Sonntag would be involved in any type of conspiracy or cover-up. However….Clueless, you need to get a better grasp on the scope of these “Audits”, what they are designed to do and the qualifications of the State Auditors who do the Auditing. It is very difficult for any Auditor to specialize in every industry. WSDOT does repairs, ferries as well as capital projects. Complex. How many hours do you think the State Auditors Office spent auditing WSDOT?? Have you ever looked at the work papers or the final auditor report opinion? I believe Brian Sonntag does the best he can to meet the “STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS” imposed on him for these AUDITS with limited resources. Does Sonntag’s Audit really give us comfort that money was well-spent, cost-effectively and with timetables??? NO. It just tellls us as far as they can tell, money’s were “LEGALLY SPENT”. A big gap between LEGAL and EFFECTIVE, don’t you think?

Windie–@81– Untrue! Your willingness to simply accept whatever the Bureaucrats feed you shows quite a deficiency. If these Bureaucrats told you the sky is falling and we need to build a $14 Billion Tunnel to survive in….you would probably support it dumbass. In fact….you are doing just that!!!

I’m assuming you’re not talking about the Seattle city “509 tunnel”, but have I ever even mentioned that? If you’re *NOT* talking about that, it must be some mystical tunnel to candy-land that only you can see.

Just had to toss in this from the same Monday PI story (wonder why folks say Seattle transportatino is goofy)

Beaches for Salmon…

“City officials were unsure whether a bigger sea wall would cost more than expected. City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck said it might if the wall is built with curves to allow re-creation of beach areas usable by salmon, something he advocates.

That design would require building new curves into Alaskan Way to accommodate the new beaches.”

righton–@85– It was that doofus heath trying to scare us into an ill-advised tax increase. However, since the threat of a 3-meter tsunami only got more ridicule for poor, pathetic heath….he was last beating the fear-mongering drum about a 1700-foot high Tsunami!! Now that got my attention….NOT!

Is Peter Steinbrueck paying for those curves with his own money??? I didn’t think so. Maybe the LEFTIST PINHEADS can all sit out on street corners with a sign and can bumming spare change for these boneheaded ideas. Since they don’t work, perhaps it will be inciteful for them the hear directly from the tax-paying public as they bum that spare change. There Sign Will Say– SAVE THE SEATTLE (AKA THE ANAL CANAL OF THE UNIVERSE) FROM PENDING DOOM. 1700-FOOT TSUNAMI DUE ANY DAY NOW ACCORDING TO OUR DOOMSDAY GURU, THE BAGWHAN HEATH!! NEED SPARE CHANGE TO BUILD TUNNEL AND REINFORCE SEAWALL. CONTRIBUTE—-OR DIE!!!

My rep, Lynn Kessler says there are 8 million vehicles on Washington roads everyday. If each one uses only 2 gallons a day @ 31.5 cents a gallon in tax, the gov is taking in about 18.5 BILLION a year. With interest accumulating until they pay for projects, there seems to be a lot more cash than projects being accounted for.

Perhaps Lynn is a bit off on the 8 million vehicle estimate. Probably more like 4-5 million….but who is counting!! Perhaps Goldy and his ilk can invest some time in doing traffic counts… heath– What comes after twelve???

The problems with AWV are mostly with the City of Seattle. Theyr’e the ones that want the tunnel boondoggle (and that really is a boondoggle), and they’re the ones who want various pie-in-the-sky projects for the waterfront. Not WSDOT.

She may be right but you extrapolation from her numbers is incorrect. The latest figures I could find were for 2001, when the gas consumption was 7.3 million gallons per day in WA. At 31.5 cents per gallon this is approximately $2.3 million per day, or $839 million per year. Still a lot of money, but not the $18+ billion figure you keep quoting.

windie @ 102

Thanks for the clarification, and I would agree the city is driving the gold plating on the viaduct. The greatest beneifciary of this project I see would be large property developers building condos and office buildings near the waterfront, and the owners of existing building that would suddenly have their views unblocked.

“…7.3 million gallons per day in WA. At 31.5 cents per gallon this is approximately $2.3 million per day, or $839 million per year.”

Thanks for making me take a look at how this cheap calculator works. You are right at 839 million and now we multiply that by how any years ?? and how much interest ???

One other thing: I’m hearing there is a group advocating for a tunnel to replace the viaduct. In this age of terrorism, how stoopid is that? The easiest thing to attack and the hardest thing to defend … a van full of ammonium nitrate blowing up at rush hour would kill hundreds, maybe more and cripple the city for ages.

You know, discussion is good, but not if you don’t really know what you are talking about. I suppose you can waste your time in a sophmoric discussion of information/good ideas/disinformation/complete bullshit or, if you refuse to believe or understand the information provided by us, you could just call the offices that manage these projects. We’d be glad to answer your questions – that’s what we are here for and I appreciate that you care enough to hold us accountable. Would rather you made an informed decision on issues (I-912) that affect our ability to deliver projects for you than keep riding the yo-yo of revenue that gets approved and then taken away. Hard to run a business that way folks, and I’m damn tired of it.

And by the way, if you were to ban “rightist commentators”, you would have to ban me as well.

Larry Frostad (sent from my own computer on my own time, so no bitching)

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